Your winter gas bill

[apelike]

Just had a look at mine and its £136.95 + £6.85 VAT for the past 3 months.

 

The average per day is 23.1 kWh this bill compared to 23.2 kWh this time last year and I live in a 2 bed top floor flat, double glazed and decent loft insulation.

 

Thermostat in the hallway, which is a stupid place to have it, and set to 15c. Radiators in spare bedroom, utility room, kitchen and bathroom all off. Bedroom, hall and living room radiators have thermostatic controls and are set to medium.

 

New condenser boiler fitted about 9 months ago.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Just one thing to add, I don't have it set on a timer and just turn it on when needed.

[carosio]

3 Bed Semi detached

Gas central heating only

6 Radiators

Set to 20 centigrade and never turned off or down through the year

Last 4 bills

 

Jan to Apr 2014 £202

Apr to July 2014 £88

July to Oct 2014 £56

Oct to Jan 2015 £224

 

What kind of boiler do you have?

[mlfc]

So who else has had a large winter gas bill? It may not seem large by comparison to others, but there is only me in the house. CH room thermostat (located in passage) set at only 12 degrees which I find keeps the overall house temp constant. However, I do have the gas fire turned up in the room where I spend most of the time. 18 degrees in this room is plenty enough for me, I just like to be comfortable not too hot. Still, it is £265 on the bill received this week from an actual reading not an estimate.

 

I either need to beef up the loft insulation or get a tread-mill.

 

Don't presume it's cheaper to run the gas fire than the boiler. Modern boilers are very efficient and it can be cheaper to heat the whole house than one room with a fire

 

Also was the previous reading actual or an estimate?

[ubermaus]

Got a £700+ bill for 2 months a few years back, it was slightly wrong but not by much.

 

To the OP, have a look into insulation, it makes a huge difference. You can cut bills in half by getting insulation installed.

[alankearn]

What kind of boiler do you have?

 

I guessed it was fitted 15 years ago but my wives little black book (where she keeps all sorts of information) says it was fitted in 1996

It is on a service contract with British Gas

 

This is the one

Click here

 

http://www.homeheatingguide.co.uk/efficiency-tables.php?model=008574

[TimmyR]

So who else has had a large winter gas bill? It may not seem large by comparison to others, but there is only me in the house. CH room thermostat (located in passage) set at only 12 degrees which I find keeps the overall house temp constant. However, I do have the gas fire turned up in the room where I spend most of the time. 18 degrees in this room is plenty enough for me, I just like to be comfortable not too hot. Still, it is £265 on the bill received this week from an actual reading not an estimate.

 

I either need to beef up the loft insulation or get a tread-mill.

 

Why have the heating on the rest of the house? Just heat the lounge. It somewhat of a myth that its more efficient to leave the heating on than to keep switching it on/off. We have a largish terraced house built in 1890 with 10 radiators. Our gas bill is about £180 for sixth months (30 per month + 35 for electric) - 360 for the entire year. We have insulated well and have an A rated boiler but I believe the majority of the saving is because we don't turn it on that much. Quick blast in the morning and 2 hours or so in the evening. I work at home a lot and if its cold put an electric heater in the room I'm working in - mianly I just wear an extra layer or two so don't need that heater on much.

 

I'm afraid I don't believe mlfc's comment that heating a single room can be less efficient than heating the whole house.

 

Some information regarding heatin here:

 

http://www.uswitch.com/energy-saving/guides/heating-on-all-the-time/

 

---------- Post added 13-03-2015 at 14:43 ----------

 

For some reason our bill keeps going down, I can't work out why but every year we seem to build up credit, we check the meter frequently and it is correct, I can only assume our boiler is becoming more efficient with time!

 

Your meter could be reading incorrectly. You could tell your supplier and they'll check it and correct your bill or on the other hand you could not...

 

---------- Post added 13-03-2015 at 14:45 ----------

 

Set to 20 centigrade and never turned off or down through the year

 

This is what I mean, you could easily save money by setting it only to come on and off when you're in. And why have it on in summer at all? Ours is off for the entirety of summer. If it then gets a bit chilly at night, when you're in bed and it doesn't matter, it means your heating isn't on.

Edited March 13, 2015 by TimmyR

[tzijlstra]

Your meter could be reading incorrectly. You could tell your supplier and they'll check it and correct your bill or on the other hand you could not...

 

It has already been checked, nothing wrong with it apparently. If I could be bothered I'd investigate exactly what is going on, but I really can't. We pay far less for our gas now than we did in a rented house half the size before we moved in here. New builds are quite handy!

[watchcoll]

I've found in my two bed terrace (with ridiculously high ceilings downstairs) that using the gas fire in the lounge seems to be quite expensive. That's in comparison to using the 3kw electric fan heater in the bedroom. I think that even though the unit price of gas is cheaper - the fire guzzles gas so it actually works out at more per hour than the 3kw fan heater which costs 45p an hour to run (one hour will easily heat up the room to tropical temps!).

 

My winter dual fuel bill was about £270 from Dec-Feb, £80 for Nov. Prior to that i didn't use any heating. My electricity part of the bill was lower than the gas, even though my CH is on a timer set to 4 hours a day and thermostat set to 18c. All that said though, my bill still came within my credit balance and is covered by my £51 Direct debit. For the whole year my estimated usage of both fuels is less than £600. So it's not drastically expensive anyway.

In summer i had a bill where the standing charges for the gas/elec were actually higher than the usage!

[ubermaus]

Avoid building up credit. Much better to renegotiate the monthly debit.

 

If you try and move companies it will take ages to receive your money back, and energy companies use it as blackmail to make you stay on.

 

I think I was reading(could be wrong about the amount) the average credit was over £1000! which is outrageous because that money is sat in their account not yours.

[watchcoll]

I'm with EDF. They automatically adjust the direct debit if i'm paying too much or not enough. After the last reading i entered my balance was left in credit by £20 so they seem to have it spot on. I prefer to pay the same amount every month so that by winter i've built up some credit and don't need to worry about the bills in winter.